For years I've resisted washi tape. To be perfectly honest, I always thought is was superfluous and expensive. But living in a motel is the perfect excuse to buy all sorts of small things that will enhance your everyday life: heaps of interior magazines, some books about New Zealand... and washi tape.

This was Rodrigo's first Christmas so I reckoned we really needed a Christmas tree. On the 24th I grabbed a packet of cotton wool squares and my (now beloved) washi and taped a sort of tree to the wall. And in the afternoon of the 25th we took the tree down (washi tape is great because it leaves no residue).

Presents were wrapped using washi tape and some pink ruled paper (that I found at the stationery shop and couldn't resist buying).